The Changemakers programme
Each year, our Changemakers programme will find innovative ways to build financial resilience, and help us move fairly to a sustainable world.
Working with our partners, Year Here and the School for Social Entrepreneurs, we'll create, develop, and invest in bold ideas and sustainable solutions in the UK and Ireland.
Our Irish-based changemaker: Jobs for Family Carers, Fiona O’Neill
A carer is someone who looks after a person who needs support because of age, disability or illness (including mental illness). As a carer you cannot be engaged in employment, training or education courses outside the home for more than 18.5 hours a week*, which means caring responsibilities can have an impact on financial resilience.
That’s why Fiona O’Neill created Jobs for Family Carers. As a Family Carer, she recognised the difficulties of regular employment in the modern job market. She told us:
‘My son lives with a number of medical conditions. The level of care he requires means that even if I wanted to, I cannot work full time. I decided I wanted to help people in a similar situation to myself. Then ‘Jobs for Family Carers’ was born.’
Jobs For Family Carers offers a space for both ends of the jobs market. Carers can look for jobs that work around their commitments, and employers can find employees to fill their vacancies too - ensuring those who provide an invaluable service to society can work and earn too.
Find out more about Jobs for Family Carers
Website / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram
Meet all the Changemakers
Fiona O’Neill, Jobs for Family Carers
Tipperary-based Jobs for Family Carers helps people who care for an ageing or sick family member to access employment that they can fit around their caring responsibilities, giving them a sustainable income and reducing financial vulnerability.
Jane Duncan Rogers, Before I Go Solutions
Before I Go Solutions mission is to ‘make end of life plans as common place as birth plans’, helping people to prepare for bereavement and mitigate the financial shocks that can result.
Louis Holliday, Pocket Power
Pocket Power are an enterprise on a mission to tackle the poverty premium by helping people on low incomes find better deals on their household bills, through providing personalised 1:1 support.
Martin Cosarinsky Campos, Breadwinners
Breadwinners provides employment and training for refugees and young people seeking asylum – who are at risk of being financially vulnerable – by selling artisan bread at farmers markets and online.
Jane Binnion, The Growing Club CIC
A not-for-profit that provides training and employment opportunities and enterprise skills for women via an innovative peer-support model.
Jerry During, Money A&E
Money A&E are an award-winning social enterprise that provides money advice and educational services to disadvantaged groups and Diverse Ethnic Communities (DEC).
Laurence Taylor, Easy As 123
The Balance project, part of Easy as 123, aims to help business owners and freelancers build their financial literacy and resilience through a new approach to financial management called Business Data Interpretations.
Ebony Rebecca, RoseTinted Financial Services
RoseTinted is a service that promotes mental wellbeing for women through a mixture of financial and mental health support. This involves everything from budget courses and one-on-one financial support to group mental health support — all with the aim of building confidence and financial resilience.
Rosie Oglesby, Page and Bloom
Page and Bloom creates handcrafted paper flowers for weddings, events and gifts. All materials are recycled and salvaged, and the venture provides employment and training for women survivors of domestic abuse, who are often left particularly financially vulnerable.
CJ Tayeh, Flank
Flank is a fintech solution, helping people on lower incomes to repay informal loans from friends and family in a safe, accountable way. The service includes measures to help build long-term debt avoidance and stable wealth, and prevent family breakdown.
How it works
In our Changemakers Programme, we’ll be working alongside Year Here and the School for Social Entrepreneurs – experts when it comes to driving change for society.
By combining their experience with our own insight, together we’ll create, develop, and invest in bold ideas and sustainable solutions that will:
- help build people’s resilience to life shocks, such as illness, divorce or change in income; or
- help individuals, businesses and communities move fairly to a sustainable world.
Each year we’ll support talented individuals to explore society’s challenges and build new solutions. We’ll also help social enterprises with existing innovations scale up and increase their impact.
Participants on this programme will get:
- Two years of support, including 1-2-1 expert consultancy, learning sessions with other social entrepreneurs in the same sector.
- A grant of up to €24,000, with opportunities to access further funding in years 2 and 3.
- The chance to collaborate and build a relationship with Royal London to work on building resilience for more people facing life shocks, or mitigate the social impacts of a move to a net zero world.
The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) recognise they can’t fix issues like poverty, climate change and ill-health alone. That is why they exist, to help 1,000 leaders of social change each year to develop the skills, strengths and networks they need to tackle society’s biggest problems.
In turn, the leaders they support help millions of people in need while creating meaningful jobs – often for the most disadvantaged in the labour market. SSE run programmes that equip people to start, scale and strengthen social enterprises and organisations that make a positive difference. But they’re not a traditional school - learning with SSE is inspiring, action-based and accessible.
Their programmes are highly tailored to the specific needs of participating organisations, offering a blend of learning, funding and mentoring.
A social enterprise is a business that puts the interests of people and the planet first. They want to change the world for the better. Like a conventional business, a social enterprise aims to make a profit – the difference is, they’ll drive the majority of their profits towards their social mission.
Social innovation is the process of creating and implementing new and better ways to meet social needs and solve social problems. While business innovations are often designed to profit the organisation, the ultimate goal of social innovation is to further social progress.
The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) recognise they can’t fix issues like poverty, climate change and ill-health alone. That is why they exist, to help 1,000 leaders of social change each year to develop the skills, strengths and networks they need to tackle society’s biggest problems.
In turn, the leaders they support help millions of people in need while creating meaningful jobs – often for the most disadvantaged in the labour market. SSE run programmes that equip people to start, scale and strengthen social enterprises and organisations that make a positive difference. But they’re not a traditional school - learning with SSE is inspiring, action-based and accessible.
Their programmes are highly tailored to the specific needs of participating organisations, offering a blend of learning, funding and mentoring.
A social enterprise is a business that puts the interests of people and the planet first. They want to change the world for the better. Like a conventional business, a social enterprise aims to make a profit – the difference is, they’ll drive the majority of their profits towards their social mission.
Social innovation is the process of creating and implementing new and better ways to meet social needs and solve social problems. While business innovations are often designed to profit the organisation, the ultimate goal of social innovation is to further social progress.
It's everyone's business
Royal London is a purpose-driven modern company with a mutual mindset, and this is reflected in the strengths we have across our business.